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At the end of the December 4 meeting of the Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) School Committee, there was a discussion about Superintendent Brad Crozier’s lack of participation in the town-wide capital planning process.
During that discussion, Crozier told the committee that he sent a delegate to the meetings, specifically Combined Facilities Director Sandra Duran. Vice Chair Jessica McCready asked “So the capital planning is where you send Sandra as your delegate?” Crozier responded “Yeah, the facilities person. Yes.” (3:18:30 below)
Crozier later stated “The capital planning one, I felt that Sandra has been representing the district.” Chair Karyn Jones interjected to state that she thought Crozier had tasked Don Sawyer with attending those meetings.
Crozier did not address the point about Sawyer being the delegate, and went on to say that Duran was reporting back from those meetings and that he and Sawyer, among others, had worked to prioritize items that were submitted to the capital plan.
Sudbury Weekly has obtained, via a records request, copies of emails about the capital planning meetings over the course of 2025, and in one email Crozier told Town staff to take him off the invitations altogether and that Sawyer would attend in his place.
While Crozier told the committee on December 4 that having Combined Facilities Director Sandra Duran represent the district was effective, records indicate that Duran had raised serious concerns about SPS participation in the process, going so far as to describe “obstructionist behavior” in a May 21, 2025 memo. Duran pleaded with Crozier to intervene over a series of memos spanning multiple months, including the following in April of 2025.
In the May 21, 2025 memo, Duran pleaded for the administration to intervene in order to keep the capital planning process moving forward:
Duran concludes in her memo, “As I have continued to bring these issues to District staff and the behavior and circumstances have not changed, I believe this supports my concern of obstructionist behavior.”
Crozier responded briefly: “After our meeting on 5/15, did you ask [EMPLOYEE] to prioritize the items in his document as I directed?”
While these memos were circulating in the spring of 2025, nothing appears to have changed by October of 2025, when Town staff presented the draft 15-year capital plan. A memo from Town Manager Andy Sheehan at that time stated: “Note: Sudbury Public Schools were invited to participate in these meetings; however, there was no representation other than from the Combined Facilities Director.”
In the records Sudbury Weekly obtained, the pattern traces all the way back to Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) capital planning in January of 2025, when Finance Director Victor Garofalo requested that Superintendent Crozier fill out a form for two SPS capital projects: